SpheresOfBalance wrote: ↑Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:58 am
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 10:04 am
In the attempt to demolish the distinction between facts and opinions - which, paradoxically, demolishes the case for moral objectivism - the following quotation has been offered without critique, as though it's undeniably true. (I omit the shouty graphic emphasis.)
'Unlike deductive arguments, inductive reasoning allows for the possibility that the conclusion is false, even if all of the premises are true Instead of being valid or invalid inductive arguments are either strong or weak, which describes how probable it is that the conclusion is true. Another crucial difference is that deductive certainty is impossible in non-axiomatic systems, such as reality, leaving inductive reasoning as the primary route to (probabilistic) knowledge of such systems.'
So the claim is: 'deductive certainty is impossible in non-axiomatic systems, such as reality'.
And the embedded claim is: 'reality is a non-axiomatic system'.
Well, blow me down. And we idiots always thought reality was an axiomatic system that organised itself into propositions deduced from axioms and chained into valid inferences. What fools we've been. That thing we call a dog is a non-axiomatic system, so we can't say anything deductively valid about it. Everything we say about it can be only inductively and probabilistically true.
But let's be serious.
1 Reality isn't linguistic, so of course it isn't an axiomatic system. Axioms are rules in a linguistic system.
2 Deduction and induction are linguistic practices - ways of constructing arguments with signs. They express or manifest 'reasoning' in the way factual assertions express or manifest 'thought'.
3 Every factual claim (proposition with a truth-value) necessarily uses deduction from linguistic rules (axioms).
4 A factual inductive argument has factual claims as premises.
5 So induction is just as 'axiomatic' (rule-governed) as deduction.
The absurd claim 'reality is a non-axiomatic system' is a fine demonstration of conceptual confusion - mistaking what we say about things for the way things are - the map for the terrain.
There are three things: features of reality; what we believe and know about them, such as that they are the case; and what we say about them, which (classically) may be true or false. To muddle these things up is a mistake.
Peter Holmes, ha ha, that's funny!
PH, all that humans have at our disposal are our conceptualizations of reality.
Not so. We have reality itself, and we have our ways of talking about it: language. I have no idea what a 'conceptualization of reality' is, and I doubt very much that you do either. It's just metaphysical blather.
And if you use language to try and undermine language you have just undermined your undermining. Understand? All one can do as Wittgenstein attempted, is to try their best to remove all ambiguity from language, to make it as precise as one can, as it's all humans have at their disposal.
1 I've no idea why you think I'm trying to 'use language to undermine language'. My argument is that there's no foundation for our linguistic practices beneath those practices. Reality doesn't categorise itself, or organise what we believe and know about it.
2 The claim that Wittgenstein was trying 'to remove all ambiguity from language' is false. His later work was all about exploring the inexhaustible variety of linguistic contexts and practices. I think you've got this completely wrong.
Not that I really want you to be silent, but convey to me anything here in this forum without using language... I won't hold my breath.
For each subject everything else is an object. If it were ALL about EITHER you OR I, NOT both, it would be subjective. Morality is the language between us that attempts to ensure we "ALL" get a fair shake; it's all about not treading on one another. And with that endeavour in mind it has to be objective in nature for it to work. No one person or group has the right to say what is moral and what is not.
1 The claim that 'morality is the language between us' is metaphysical nonsense. Our moral values and behaviour are not linguistic in any way whatsoever. It's the moral assertions we make that are linguistic.
2 You're merely making moral assertions: 'everyone should get a fair shake'; and 'it's wrong to tread on other people'. And I agree with them.
3 I think you misunderstand objectivity, which just means reliance on facts: true factual assertions. Achieving fair shakes for everyone isn't about the objectivity of moral assertions - it's about persuading everyone to accept them and act accordingly.
4 I agree that what is moral and immoral isn't in anyone's or any group's gift. But that's not because there are moral facts. It's a consequence of there being no moral facts - of morality not being objective.
So morality must be rule based, as it's all that it can be. "The Golden Rule" or (The Fundamental Social Axiom) as I like to call my corrected version is a good place to start. Though much like religion many try and thrust upon others their own version of morality, that suits their own particular wants and desires at the expense of others. As religion is further squashed into oblivion due to scientific proofs, morality shall be reshaped to be all inclusive as it should be.
Some version of the golden rule may be 'a good place to start'. But that it is is a moral value-judgement - not a fact. It may be practical and sensible and evolutionarily adaptive for social mammals to 'do as you would be done by' - but why does that make it morally right to do so? There's no deductive or inductive connection.